Information for employers
Proud to Care South Gloucestershire is being co-ordinated by South Gloucestershire Council and is part of the Proud to Care South West campaign, aimed to support providers with recruitment and retention.
The regional and local Proud to Care campaigns direct people to the Proud to Care South Gloucestershire website. The site has been set up so that job seekers are able to search for providers within their local area. This process also directs users to your website job pages, allowing them to directly apply for current vacancies within your organisation.
In addition to support with recruitment, the Proud to Care team also provide retention support via signposting to training opportunities, wellbeing events and tools to support value-based recruitment and retention.
The King's Trust Social Care Recruitment support
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The King’s Trust are proud to offer free training, mentoring, and funding opportunities designed to help young people begin meaningful careers in Health and Social Care.
Since 2019, they’ve supported thousands of 16 to 30-year-olds into roles across the Health and Social Care sector. By working closely with hundreds of hospitals, care homes, and healthcare organisations across the UK, they’ve helped place young people into vital entry-level roles such as care assistants, administrative support, and emergency call handlers.
They are keen to connect with more Social Care providers across BNSSG to support recruitment, meet growing workforce demands, and build a pipeline of passionate, skilled young professionals for the future.
If you are interested in collaborating with the King’s Trust to support recruitment, please contact proudtocare@southglos.gov.uk.
BNSSG Sponsorship Recruitment Scheme - Free Scheme for Care Providers
Care and Support West are working with Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire councils to offer support and advice to local care providers who have sponsor licences, or are in the process of applying.
What is the aim of this scheme?
Over recent months, Care and Support West has spoken to a number of providers who have sponsor licenses. From their feedback, many benefits were apparent. However, they also identified some challenges which highlighted that support is needed for both care providers and international workers.
In view of this, we have worked with our local BNSSG councils to put together a scheme which will give care providers who have a sponsor licence, or who have applied for one, access a range of offers to support for themselves and their international workers.
It will also provide ongoing feedback from care providers to Care and Support West and the three councils to help ensure that the support being offered is the most relevant and useful it could be.
The funding for this scheme has been made available from the government’s International recruitment fund for the Adult Social Care 2024 to 2025 allocation to the BNSSG.
What support does the scheme offer?
- FREE webinars – both for those who are new to sponsoring overseas workers, and those who are well established
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FREE cultural awareness training for sponsored care workers
- FREE Train the Trainer sessions to address cultural awareness across your team
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FREE monthly legal updates
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FREE access to 30 minutes individual advice from a specialist solicitor (subject to availability)
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FREE guidance from C&SW project staff about the support options available that could be best for your organisation
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FREE monthly newsletters
Sponsorship Recruitment - Knowledge webinars
We are happy to say that Lifted are partnering with us to deliver a new series of FREE knowledge webinars to support you on your sponsorship journey. Lifted will share their expertise and insight of the care sector and immigration in these sessions.
Starting at the end of January we will start our Winter Series – here are the first two webinars:
‘Updates & learning from sponsorship revocations’ – Wednesday 28th January 2026 10:00 –11:30 Most common reasons care providers lose their sponsor licence and how to avoid them
‘What does the future hold for UK sponsorship recruitment’ – Wednesday 25th February 2026 10:00 – 11:30
How to support sponsored workers in the changing landscape?
Cultural Awareness Training
The Cultural Awareness Training (Caring in the UK) for sponsored care workers which has been organised by Bristol City Council, and delivered by ASH training, has been running for almost a year now and has been training many of your staff on the differences in working in the UK care sector.
As many sponsored care workers have now been working in BNSSG for a year or more we are looking at how we can evolve future training to continue to meet the needs of your sponsored workforce. This is in discussion currently.
We will be back in the New Year with new dates and new sessions.
But if you have any thoughts about areas where your sponsored workers could benefit from support please let us know or you can email victoria.smith@bristol.gov.uk and we will look to include these in the sessions going forward.
Sponsorship Recruitment - Train the trainers course
We are excited to announce Keys Training will be delivering a new FREE cultural awareness “train the trainers” course for care providers across BNSSG to start in October with sessions running across the next six months.
This training will give you, your managers and/or internal trainers the training and all the resources needed to deliver your own three-hour cultural awareness training session to your wider team. It will cover:
- How to confidently deliver a three-hour cultural awareness training session for staff teams and use the resource pack developed for this training.
- Techniques for facilitating group discussions, especially around sensitive or values-based topics.
- Engagement strategies to build confidence and participation.
- Troubleshooting tips for common challenges in delivery.
- How to adapt delivery to different audiences or support needs.
We are running both in-person and virtual sessions so please pick the one session which best suits you.
Employers Pack
In this pack we summarise:
- Proud to Care: recent and planned campaigns
- Market research: insight into what job seekers are looking for
- Resources: suggestions, materials and templates to help you market your vacancies using the power of your own social networks.
Why is retention so important within social care?
Skills for Care identified five factors that are key to retaining adult social care staff. They are:
- Being paid more than the minimum wage
- Not being on a zero-hours contract
- Being able to work full time
- Being able to access training
- Having a relevant qualification.
Where none of these factors apply, care workers are more than twice as likely to leave their jobs than when all five factors apply – a 48.7% turnover rate compared with 20.6%. Implementing these factors should make it easier for the people who love what they do to stay, by improving terms and conditions and investing in their career development.
What is value-based recruitment?
Value-based recruitment is an approach which focusses on recruiting people with values, behaviours and attitudes that align with those of the workplace.
View the Skills for Care, values – based recruitment toolkilt.
Values-based recruitment (skillsforcare.org.uk)
For tailored support, contact Skills for Care South Glos Locality Manager, Skills for Care locality manager covering South Gloucestershire.
How can I help to develop employees skills?
Investing in your people and nurturing their talents will help you tackle skills gaps and recruit and retain the right people. Skills West is a partnership between Business West and Western Training Provider Network (WTPN). Skills advisors provide free, impartial advice and can help negotiate the right training for your business, including access to government funding incentives.
Skills for Care can also provide advice and link you up with government workforce development funding. Contact Skills for Care South Glos Locality Manager for details.
Inspiring the next generation
Only 10% of the adult social care workforce is under twenty five. There are a range of opportunities to challenge misconceptions and attract more young people with the right values into care.
- Free, impartial Apprenticeship advice from Skills West
- Graduate Management Programme on Skills for Care
We work closely with local universities and education providers to encourage students to choose care and support work to supplement their income. By providing opportunities for students over evenings, weekends and holiday periods, you will be gaining a committed workforce that is willing to work when others ask for time off.
Provider search function
If you would like your organisation to feature within the Proud to Care search function, please email: proudtocare@southglos.gov.uk.
Once we update the site with your details, users will be able to access your live vacancies, directly via your website.